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- HOW BANKS PREPARED FOR A U.S. DEFAULT. (2)
- GREECE’S ADVANTAGE IN THE CHICKEN GAME. (2)
- Nick: That makes sense. It reminds me of the stories Pater Familias would tell me about how in Boston the person with...
- Dick Weisfelder: Greece seems to me to be playing a game that Karl Deutsch called “underdog.” While one...
- FOOTBALL PLAYERS DELIBERATELY CAUSING CONCUSSIONS? (3)
- Nick: It was my understanding that boxing gloves were to protect the puncher’s hands and not the...
- Dick Weisfelder: Remember the Roman arenas? Bare knuckled boxing? Such injuries were taken as natural and accepted in...
- Mary Jane Schaefer: This isn’t about football. Or even sportsmanship. Well, it is about sportsmanship. But what...
- A 25 % CHANCE OF A EURO DEFAULT? (1)
- Nick: The fact that this has gone on for so long is pretty perplexing. The Economist is referring back to articles it...
- DECIDING WHAT KIND OF PATIENT YOU ARE. (1)
- Dick Weisfelder: One can be very open to new technology, but also risk averse. The recent debates about how to...
- THE EUROZONE—A CHICKEN GAME WHERE EVERY MEMBER CAN BLOW IT UP? (1)
- Mary Jane Schaefer: This is not a matter of chicken. These are all turkeys.
- PLAYING WITH MATCHES NEAR A GASOLINE TANK. (1)
- Mary Jane Schaefer: Why would the French care? As long as they take down Britain?
- NORWAY’S CHRISTMAS BUTTER SHORTAGE. (1)
- Mary Jane Schaefer: Christmas with a butter cookie shortage–in Scandinavia. This isn’t even Scrooge. This...
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Category Archives: Science
ONE DROP EVERY EIGHT OR NINE YEARS.
ONE DROP EVERY EIGHT OR NINE YEARS. There are some kinds of crude oil in California that are extremely viscous. So viscous that at room temperature you can turn a glass container of the crude upside down and no drop … Continue reading
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DECISION TREES FOR PATIENTS.
DECISION TREES FOR PATIENTS. Laura Landro’s review describes how Doctors Groopman and Hartzband “examine a formula for rational decision-making often used in economics: Measure the probability of an outcome and place a numerical value on the outcome itself.” The probable … Continue reading
Posted in Economics, Science
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DECIDING WHAT KIND OF PATIENT YOU ARE.
DECIDING WHAT KIND OF PATIENT YOU ARE. Jerome Groopman (an oncologist) and Pamela Hartzband (an endocrinologist) have written YOUR MEDICAL MIND, which analyzes the role of patient choices in medical decisions. (I have relied on this review by Daniel J. … Continue reading
VICTORIAN HARPOONS IN TWENTY-FIRST CENTURY WHALES.
VICTORIAN HARPOONS IN TWENTY-FIRST CENTURY WHALES. Nick and his friend Jane went to the whaling museum in New Bedford recently and were struck by the fact that whales are being found today that are carrying harpoons that were fired in … Continue reading
Posted in History, Literature, Science
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A PHYSICIST HAS EXPLAINED AN OBSERVATION BY LEONARDO.
A PHYSICIST HAS EXPLAINED AN OBSERVATION BY LEONARDO. Instapundit called attention to a recent paper by a physicist, Christophe Eloy, which provides a mathematical explanation for an observation made by Leonardo da Vinci which has never been satisfactorily explained. This … Continue reading
Posted in art, Science
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KLUDGES.
KLUDGES. The title of the sunk cost article refers to sunk costs as a “memory kludge”. This wikipedia article defines a kludge as: “A kludge (or kluge) is a workaround, a quick-and-dirty solution, a clumsy or inelegant, yet effective, solution … Continue reading
Posted in Economics, Science
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LEAPING INTO SOMEBODY ELSE’S MIND.
LEAPING INTO SOMEBODY ELSE’S MIND. Ariely provides support for my favorite kind of gift giving—taking on “the great challenge… in making the leap into someone else’s mind.” He says that psychological research “affirms that we…have a hard time seeing the … Continue reading
DOES COOKED FOOD PROVIDE MORE ENERGY?
DOES COOKED FOOD PROVIDE MORE ENERGY? Wrangham in the interview says that he was surprised that his paper in 1999 that argued that cooked food provides more energy than raw met with a lot of criticism that dismissed the claim. … Continue reading
Posted in History, Science
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UPDATE—WHY IT MATTERS THAT COOKED FOOD HAS MORE CALORIES.
UPDATE—WHY IT MATTERS THAT COOKED FOOD HAS MORE CALORIES. I posted here three years ago about my memory of an anthropologist’s claim that cooking was the greatest labor saving invention of all time because it reduced chewing time. Since then, … Continue reading
Posted in History, Science
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THE MCGURK EFFECT.
THE MCGURK EFFECT. I have been claiming for some time now that I am not good at lip reading; Mary Jane is the one who can tell what the disappointed athletes are saying. Apparently I am better at it than … Continue reading
Posted in Science, Uncategorized
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